


Nothing but the Truth

by Nynaeve



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 01:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nynaeve/pseuds/Nynaeve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a meeting on Cardassia reminds Kathryn of her past, she's thrown into Chakotay's line of fire.  A companion piece to quantumsilver's <a href="http://quantuminexcess.webs.com/especiallythelies.htm">Especially the Lies</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing but the Truth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quantumsilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumsilver/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Especially the Lies](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/5310) by quantumsilver. 
  * Inspired by [Establishing the Lie](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/5317) by Cheshire. 



> Thank you to QS for having written a lovely work for me to extend on. You must read [Especially the Lies](http://quantuminexcess.webs.com/especiallythelies.htm) before reading this one! There is also a prelude by Cheshire [Establishing the Lie](http://fictioning.net/viewstory.php?sid=372).

~*C*~

I spot her immediately in the crowd of delegates. I'm sweating from my hike into the complex and I stretch my neck to try to relieve some of the heat underneath my collar. This place is a hellhole and such barrenness is well deserved in my opinion. If it had been my choice I wouldn't have stepped foot on this rock, but I've always found it difficult to deny Kathryn anything she requests.

It takes a second for her eyes to meet mine; she graciously excuses herself and heads in my direction. She's smiling, but it rings false, and I immediately assume that the meeting didn't go as well as she'd hoped. I'd tried to warn her. _You're Starfleet not Maquis_ , she'd self-righteously chastised me. _We shouldn't judge based on DNA_. She'd regretted those words two seconds later when I harshly recounted my own father's death at the hands of these supposedly worthy humanoids. I may have even called them "fucking Cardassians" - the rage had been roaring in my ears at the time.

She's intercepted by Ambassador Ebram and I tug on my ear with a sigh. Getting the hell out of here looks like it's going to take longer than expected. I see a buffet table not too far off and begin to head towards it when a particularly smarmy Cardassian sidles up to me. His smile bares his teeth to me and I respond with one of my own, tight-lipped and clearly lacking sincerity.

"Captain, how lovely of you to join us," he greets me. His face is familiar, but I can't place him.

"Lovely isn't the term I'd use," I reply icily with undertones of disgust. Cardassians enjoy intrigue, I prefer to shoot them.

"I'm Garak," he introduces with an extension of his hand. I glance at it and then at him. When I don't take it he retracts it with a wiggling of his fingers. "You were Maquis."

"I was." Fewer words means less risk that I'll say something to offend Kathryn's precious project.

"I worked on Deep Space Nine during the ordeal. It was very nasty what happened. Your homeworld...Dorvan IV, yes?"

I glance at him and make no attempt to hide my irritation. "I don't do dances and I frankly don't give a damn about yours. Yes, Dorvan was my homeworld. Yes, my family was slaughtered. Yes, I was Maquis," I list. "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"

His expression is one of both surprise and pleasure. "I hadn't expected for you to be quite so forthcoming. Your admiral gave me quite a run for my money and here you hand me the grand prize! Too easy, much too easy."

I hate Cardassians. Kathryn keeps glancing over at us and she looks...worried. That tells me this bastard is up to something. Of course, when is a Cardassian not up to something?

"If that's all..." I take a few steps away from him and he sticks with me like an Andorian leech.

"Actually..." he begins and then he pauses. A flicker of doubt clouds his face and he clears his throat. "I was just going to say, please give my sincerest apologies to Admiral Janeway and let her know that I hope this stay makes up for her first...experience...with Cardassian hospitality."

I blink and he hesitates long enough to see if what he's said is sinking in. I'm not sure of all the implications, but I know he's imparting information to me that he shouldn't. Then he's gone and I realize that his game played out exactly the way he'd planned.

~*J*~

Garak doesn't even give me the courtesy of meeting my eyes as he leaves Chakotay standing there. I don't know what he's said and I can't even fathom the point he is trying to prove, but I see it in my former first officer's visage. He's never been talented in the art of deception. I manage to beg off one more delegate who wants to rejoice in our supposed victory and get to him.

" _Voyager_ is ready whenever you are," he tells me as we meet in the middle. I'm on red alert; I hedge myself carefully. I don't know that Garak actually said anything to him and I could end up losing if he was bluffing.

"The sooner the better," I answer and he motions to the small security contingent he'd brought with him.

I'm keenly aware of the silence as we trek to the transport site. Despite the success in the talks, I feel as though I've failed. Chakotay had passionately insisted that I decline the order - and I could have - but my _principles_ have been my lifeline for my entire life. Topple a tyrant and there exists a vacuum. Leave it untouched and another tyrant takes charge. I've recited this to myself endlessly for days, reminding myself that I _do_ want peace and that I _do_ want restoration. I might have finished the talks finally believing my own rhetoric if Garak hadn't decided to go digging around in my past.

"Did you accomplish what you'd wanted?" Chakotay asks as we turn a corner. We're almost to the edge of the city. My brow is damp and I wipe it with the back of my sleeve.

"Maybe. Only time will tell," I admit. The way his shoulders tense tells me that I witnessed Garak planting his last weapon - a dirty bomb buried in the one person I trust with my life.

He appears pensive and he doesn't say anything more except to call for a beam out. Once on board, I'm counting my steps and waiting for the right corridor to part ways. I need to gain distance and maybe I can survive the explosion. My shields are low and it's likely that I'll be shredded to pieces if I haven't had time to prepare.

"I planned on dinner," he offers as we near the next junction. "I know we didn't part on best of terms..."

"It is what it is," I assure him. "I'm okay...if you are."

"Then you'll eat with me?"

If I hadn't seen him speaking with that damn Cardassian tailor, I'd interpret his request as a proposition. Our relationship, if I can call it that, is relatively new. Instead of going home one night, I stayed. Now, somehow, we always end up in the same bed when we're in proximity to one another. Like gravity we fall into each other, it's what makes what Garak did so utterly heinous. No matter where I go tonight, I know where I will inevitably land.

"Yes," I accept because if I don't, he'll _know_ something is wrong and my staunch denials will be for naught.

~*C*~

I shouldn't ask. To ask is to fall right into the trap laid and I could kill Kathryn and myself. I'm weighing this as we go back to my quarters. Seduction would be a safer route; it would be better to let Kathryn keep her secrets. I've never expected my partners to bare their souls to me, what they choose to share is voluntary. In retrospect, that's probably how I missed Seska's loyalty issue. My father used to warn against sussing out everyone's darkest memories because it might irrevocably change the present.

I pour her a gin and tonic while I opt for a snifter of brandy. The dinner program is in the replicator, waiting for my command and I'm hesitating to give it. Instead I settle on the sofa, drink in hand, and I contemplate my next move.

"Garak was quite the talker," I comment. I've tripped the timer. Her knuckles go white she's holding the glass so tightly. Had I been Garak she wouldn't have even given me that much.

"He thinks he knows a lot about...everything," she dismisses. The fact that she's discrediting him before I've even mentioned a topic confirms my suspicions.

"Double agents usually do," I agree and I inhale deeply. Her eyes meet mine and I swear she's pleading for me to back away. I can't. Not this time. "He mentioned a previous experience with Cardassians. You've never mentioned it."

There's a tremble in her voice as she answers. "It was never relevant."

"And yet this fringe Cardassian felt the need to specifically note it when he spoke with me," I press. Her composure is riddled with hairline fractures and the information I've unleashed is cutting into her skin, into her soul, and into mine as well. I lived with Kathryn's Starfleet principles because I thought she didn't _know_ better. I knew that some at Starfleet were turning a blind eye to what the Cardassians were doing, but _her_? She was the woman who had relentlessly pursued Rudy Ransom to the near detriment of her own crew.

"Let it be," she warns in a low tone, her eyes fixed on her drink.

I want to, but it's Pandora's Box. I have to open it, I _need_ to open it. Every cliché in the book about curiosity applies to me in this moment and I brush every one of them aside. "I can't."

She kicks back the rest of her gin and tonic. "Then I'm going to need another drink."

I fix her another, hating the Cardassians with a fervor that I haven't felt since I was wearing leathers and fucking Seska. They revel in head games and the only people I'd ever met that were as good at it were the Devore. I hated them too.

Her drink is stronger this time and she gives a half-cough as she tastes it, but she makes no motion to ask me to water it down for her. Kathryn isn't a heavy drinker and there's no doubt that she's already feeling the effects of her first beverage. She despises losing control - even in bed she prefers to ride me; not that I ever complain.

"I was a prisoner," she confesses suddenly. She purses her lips. "And that's that."

~*J*~

I'm making every effort to get him to stop his line of questioning. I'm exhausted. Chakotay isn't an enemy and when he pushes, I relent. After my conversation on the planet my fears are resurfacing. I _saw_ the medical report when I got back. I also know what I dream about at night. Ever since the implication that there could be another report, I hear the whispers in the back of my mind, _reports can be forged_. It wouldn't have been the first one with regards to this particular mission.

"I never...I had no idea," he breathes and he has a pity in his demeanor that makes my stomach roll.

"They never touched me," I recite. _Nothing happened_. I was clean. No abrasions. No signs of forced entry. The nightmare of scaled skin against my breasts is my imagination. I'm _certain_ of it. Almost. Maybe. It doesn't help, of course, that Chakotay is scrutinizing my body language. He was Maquis and he's seen the inside of their camps.

"Admiral Paris was with me," I add, hoping to divert some of the attention. "I was an ensign and they found him more...useful."

"Cardassians aren't always interested in useful."

I sigh. "These were. I'm telling you, nothing happened. No, it wasn't pleasant...Admiral Paris...I could..." I close my eyes and demand that my mind stay clear. I remember his screams. I remember thinking he was the strongest person I knew _and I remember his screams_. "They tortured him."

Chakotay is staring at me, his brandy forgotten on the edge of the table as he processes the information I'm giving to him. Tom's rough relationship with his father is rooted in this experience. The handful of times I was ever privy to the vitriol that my helmsman would spit about his father, I would desperately wish he could comprehend what his father had done - not for Starfleet, but for me.

"Yet they left you alone?"

I hate the incredulity in his tone as he zeroes in on the snag in my otherwise perfect tapestry of logic. I could shut this down right now. I could stand up, and walk out the door. The problem is that I don't want to sever the tendrils of our fresh connection. My decision to come to Cardassia strained the gossamer threads.

"Why do you say it like it's impossible?" I throw at him. It's a deflection to require him to account for his reasoning. I have medical reports. I have Admiral Paris' testimony. I have evidence. Circumstantial, but a hell of a lot more real than whatever anyone else has. Almost anyone.

"I wouldn't say impossible. Highly improbable, yes. We rescued enough women from those camps. Some won't ever let another man touch them at all because those bastards were so brutal. That they wouldn't have dragged you in front of Admiral Paris just to make him watch..."

"Enough!" I shout. I can't bear to hear his words. I can't bear for him to describe my nightmares to me in lurid detail and I can't bear for him to be right. "They _never_ touched me. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

~*C*~

Kathryn has a knack for being bull-headed, it's part of the reason we end up running at each other half the time.

"This isn't something you can order away," I counter. Her willful ignorance feels like a slap in the face of every victim and it boils my blood. "But if this is where you want to leave it, _fine_. Despite the fact that they fucked daughters in front of fathers and mothers in front of sons, they left the helpless, beautiful, Starfleet ensign in a cell while they politely tortured her superior officer!" My voice bellows out of me and I'm shocked at my own anger. The Cardassians are like a taint on my soul having filled me with hate when they slaughtered my homeworld and leaving me with guilt at having joined the very organization that pretended such atrocities weren't happening. Not only had I had one in my bed, here I am, facing yet another way their cancer has spread.

Her cheeks are ashen at my vulgar outburst and she barely manages to get the glass on the table. This is it. This is the explosion she was terrified of, that I had the chance to diffuse. I scrub my hand over my face and use every last milliliter of self-control to inhale.

"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for," I apologize, my timbre kinder and full of shame. I can't even meet her eyes that are locked onto me like a phaser.

"Nothing...happened..." She's barely louder than a whisper. It occurs to me that perhaps she didn't know. Perhaps she couldn't handle knowing and so she left the idea of torture in the abstract. The idea of any situation being larger than Kathryn Janeway is entirely inconceivable to me.

My shoulders sag. "Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you." My words are cold but they lack bite. I'm not sure which is worse, thinking that she knew and played the Starfleet game or realizing that she has honestly put her entire faith into Starfleet philosophy. Both scenarios seem more like caricatures than anyone real.

"Garak said there was an account of my imprisonment." She clears her throat. Her admission is making her ill; I can see the way she swallows tightly. "He didn't show it to me, so I have no way to know if it's authentic or if it even truly exists although if he knows..." The implication hangs in the air like stale Leola root stew.

"I see." And I'm not entirely certain I want to anymore.

~*J*~

I'm fighting the sting behind my eyes. Inside I'm grasping at tendrils of light, but they elude me as self-accusations become louder. Pieces that I never looked too closely at are demanding my attention and I'm seeing, for the first time, in a new perspective. An errant Cardassian dossier could have been falsified just as easily as my medical file. Admiral Paris had assured the veracity of my testimony numerous times and I never breathed a word about my dreams. About the sound of my own voice begging for...

"Why would they have falsified my medical data?" I say in a hushed tone. The truth is clawing in my mind and yet it remains steadfastly out of reach. When the Maquis became a real threat I was asked a few questions and when I told them that _nothing had happened_ they walked away. Later I realized the depths to which the witch hunts for traitors went but...had Admiral Paris been protecting me all those years? I don't even notice I'm shaking until Chakotay appears next to me.

"Kathryn," he addresses gently. "Look at me."

My heart is beating wildly in my chest. Snatches of harsh color, the vague taste of blood on my tongue, and events that are incongruous with my meticulously drawn out timeline are crowding my psyche. _No one touched me,_ I shout into the fray. _No one touched me_.

"Kathryn." His voice is firmer this time and I'm staring into a black abyss.

"What do you want from me?" I ask and I'm not sure if I'm talking to Chakotay or the large Cardassian man that visits me in the worst of my nightmares.

Chakotay's delicate touch to my cheek, smooth in contrast to the unwelcome contact that I'd had on the planet. It grounds me and I close my eyes, a tear escaping.

"Give me honesty, nothing more. Tell me you want to keep your secret. I can live with that, but don't feed me Starfleet propaganda. Not here," he lays out softly. "If we're lovers, we need to trust each other."

I swallow hard. "We are lovers, aren't we?" My voice feels muted and far away.

"We were lovers long before we slept together," he states with a ghost of a smile.

My hand reaches out and I place a palm on his chest. I've done this many times before, both in between the covers and in a professional capacity. I stare at it. I strive to understand him.

"I don't know."

His brow furrows. "Don't know?"

"I don't know that I want to remember," I confess and I hold my breath, waiting for the internal rush of memories and emotion. It never comes. "Maybe...maybe something did happen...more than I can recall, but..." I choke back a sob. We sit there like that for a few minutes, in silence and in quiet contemplation.

"Are you hungry?" he finally inquires and I nod. It's there now, in the open. I'm free to pursue it...

"Very much so." ...Or not. Not today at least.

He leans over and pauses centimeters from my lips. I close the gap. He tastes of brandy and smells of musk and I'm lost. We linger there and there's no question that dinner is about to be delayed as he slips my jacket off my shoulders. Perhaps I'd misread Garak, but I don't think I did. Either way, the game we played was meaningless. I've won.

And I know that without a doubt no one, of any importance, ever touched me.


End file.
